


A Land of Wheat and Barley

by chaos_is_welcome



Category: The Last Kingdom (TV)
Genre: Gen, Introspection, TLKFFF2020, osferth cooks
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-07-24
Updated: 2020-07-24
Packaged: 2021-03-05 04:34:02
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,983
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25478485
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/chaos_is_welcome/pseuds/chaos_is_welcome
Summary: For the TLKFFF2020 Prompt: Osferth Cooks for the People He Loves (Platonically)There are very few things Osferth enjoyed about his time living in the church, but learning to cook was one of them.  He had enjoyed the time in the gardens, tending to the plants that provided flavor, medicine, and sustenance.  He enjoyed it when Father Aelwold showed him how to combine things he had grown to make healing broths and hearty stews.  He did not, however, enjoy the piety of life in the church.  He was supposed to love God most, but the man Osferth had loved most had been taken from him, and that was his uncle Leofric.  Father Aelwold and the others preached of living their lives according to God, but when he closed his eyes, Osferth dreamed of the stories Leofric had told him as he had sat upon his knee in his mother’s kitchen, not of the stories of Christ.
Comments: 9
Kudos: 9
Collections: The Last Kingdom Fanfic Fest





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I have been realllllllyyyyyy wanting to write Osferth but I feel like he is the HARDEST character to get a handle on, mostly because he hasn't been given much to do.
> 
> So here's an attempt, for the TLKFFF Round 2 prompt: Osferth Cooks for the People He Loves (Platonically)
> 
> I think this will be multiple chapters, although I can't promise I will updated/finish before the end of the deadline for round 2.
> 
> As usual, this is a quick write with no proof-reading/editing so I apologize for any mistakes. I hope you enjoy---I have been tossing this one around in my head all week!

There are very few things Osferth enjoyed about his time living in the church, but learning to cook was one of them. He had enjoyed the time in the gardens, tending to the plants that provided flavor, medicine, and sustenance. He enjoyed it when Father Aelwold showed him how to combine things he had grown to make healing broths and hearty stews. He did not, however, enjoy the piety of life in the church. He was supposed to love God most, but the man Osferth had loved most had been taken from him, and that was his uncle Leofric. Father Aelwold and the others preached of living their lives according to God, but when he closed his eyes, Osferth dreamed of the stories Leofric had told him as he had sat upon his knee in his mother’s kitchen, not of the stories of Christ. 

For as long as he could remember, Leofric had been a fixture in his mother’s home, and he would always pull Osferth close and tell him tales of his adventures as a warrior. Often those tales involved an “arseling heathen” named Uhtred, and his mother had always slapped her brother on the shoulder when he said those words. Tales of sailing against the Danes, fighting against the Danes, outsmarting the Danes. “Now Osferth,” Leofric would say, “you cannot always judge a man on what others think of him. Despite Uhtred’s pagan ways, he is the bravest damn warrior I have fought beside, and he thinks.” Leofric had cast his eyes up to his mother then, who was working with their back turned to them. He had leaned close to the boy. “He thinks, as your father thinks. He can read and write, and he thinks, and he fights, and those are all very important things. You need to remember that.” His uncle himself had not been able to read, but Osferth had enjoyed his tales of adventure far more than the books his father, King Alfred, had sent to the monastery in the years that followed. Yet it was Leofric’s words that made him keep learning when he wanted to quit. 

Leofric had died, and everything had changed. Without her brother’s protection, his mother had been sent to a nunnery away from Winchester, and Osferth had been sent to the church. At first he had hated it there, had tried to run away, but his father’s guardsman, a giant of a man called Steapa, had fetched him back each time with a cuff on the head. He thought of Leofric’s words about learning to read and write and think, and so he stayed with the church, and he learned what he could. His father did not visit--Osferth was a bastard after all, but he did send books. And so Osferth read--he read of the histories of Wessex and the lands across the sea, and of Rome, and of the church. He read books his father did not send too, books about herbs for healing, recorded by the healers who had passed through the church before. When the piety became too oppressive, he escaped to the garden and let working with the earth take his focus from the incongruous life he lived. Whatever he was meant for, he was certain it was not the church. He thought of Leofric often, and he longed for something else. He longed to be a warrior. 

When he was seventeen, the Lord Uhtred was in Winchester for Alfred’s legitimate daughter’s marriage, and so Osferth sought him out. He was a man now, and it was time to become what he wanted and not what the man who had fathered him, but would not acknowledge him, demanded. And so he entered the Lord Uhtred’s service. For a time, he feared he had a made a terrible mistake. He did not know how to fight, and the men that surrounded Lord Uhtred were seasoned fighters. There was an Irishman, large and loud and overbearing, with a scar across his face and sprinkling his arms. There was a quieter, mysterious looking Danish boy, who couldn’t have been much older than Osferth, yet had the poise of a man who was born with a sword and the scars to match. There was a hulking bald Dane with a white mustache, and so many other men riddled with scars who always had their hands on their swords. Osferth knew that the Lord Uhtred let him stay only to displease King Alfred, but Osferth was glad. He hoped to belong, to prove himself worthy. 

Lord Uhtred’s wife was kind. Her name was Lady Gisela, and she never failed to smile kindly at Osferth and ask him how he was. In many ways, she reminds him of his mother. She is the first person in Coccham he cooks for. Uhtred has just brought news of Aethelflaed’s capture, and it has distressed Lady Gisela a great deal, for she and Osferth’s half-sister were apparently friends. Lady Gisela is staring into the hearth fire, eyes unseeing, when Osferth brings her a broth infused with herbs that would help her find peaceful sleep. “Here Lady, I made this for you. It will help you sleep.” He extends the bowl to her. 

She smiles at him half-heartedly, taking the bowl with a nod. “Do you know her?” She asks, turning the bowl in her hands as if to warm herself. “Aethelflaed?”

Osferth sighs. Oh, how he had wished, when he was younger, that he could play in the courtyard with Aethelflaed and Edward. He had seen them, sometimes, when he had walked by a chore for the church. “Only of her, Lady, and I have seen her from afar.” 

Gisela lifts the bowl and takes a slow drink of the broth, closing her eyes as she swallows. “Her husband is not kind,” Gisela says, staring down at the bowl. “Uhtred does not know, so do not tell him. The king does not either. She deserves better.” She takes another drink and smiles at him. “This is quite good. Thank you.”

Osferth nods. “How did you two become friends?” He asks, wishing to know more of his sister. He has nothing now. His uncle is dead, his father does not want him, and his mother is gone to somewhere unknown. He wishes to know more of his half sister, and perhaps when Uhtred goes to retrieve her, he will take Osferth with him. He would like to do something that might make his uncle proud. 

**

Uhtred does take him to Beamfloat to free Lady Aethelflaed. He sticks his sword into a dying man, and Lord Uhtred is displeased with him. He has a great deal to learn, it seems. They free the princess, but there are tears in her eyes when she hugs their father, and they are not happy tears. He does not understand what has happened here, or the grim look on Lord Uhtred’s face. Clappa, the great giant Dane with the bald head and white moustache has fallen, and Osferth watches as the men drink to him, their ale cups raised. They share tales, and Osferth feels like an outsider in this fellowship built on trust and blood.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Osferth begins to feel at home in Coccham.

Lord Uhtred’s men spend more time training than they do anything else, with drinking ale coming in a close second. Osferth begins with a wooden staff, and it’s usually Finan that takes the time to work with him. He's the Irishman, and Osferth has come to learn that many of his scars were hard earned. He does not speak of his past, but Osferth has learned that he was held in chains next to Lord Uhtred many years ago, and that is how he came to serve Uhtred. Finan's official title is head of Uhtred's household guard, but he is their Lord's second in every way. There is no doubt in Osferth's mind that Finan will follow Uhtred anywhere, even straight into the gates of hell. The Irishman had called him "baby monk" the first time they had met, and that name had stuck. It grated him, since many of the warriors here, including the quiet Dane called Sihtric, were not that much older than him. Finan's way is to tease everyone mercilessly though, so Osferth comes to take the moniker and the fact that Finan takes time to work with him with a staff as acceptance. 

Steapa comes to remove him to Winchester on the king's command, but Finan gets in the giant man's space and stands toe to toe, calling him "big man" and whispering menacing words Osferth can't make out. Even as he is mentally preparing himself to leave Coccham behind, Steapa surprises him by grinning and clapping Finan on the back. "You never know when to stop talking, Irishman. Take me to Lord Uhtred."

Whatever Uhtred and Finan had said, he got to stay, and the King did not send for him again. That night, Osferth brought Finan some deer meat he had carefully preserved from a recent hunt. The man was forever eating, probably because he was forever training, fighting, talking, or drinking. 

Finan raised an eyebrow as Osferth handed him the wrapped meat. 

"A thank you," Osferth explained awkwardly. "For Steapa."

"How many times has he brought ye back?" Finan asks, turning the package over in his hands.

Osferth only shrugs. "He hasn't had to in many years. I resigned myself to my fate for awhile, until I could no longer deny it was not for me."

"Now that," Finan says, tucking the package of meat into his cloak and reaching for the jug of ale in the center of the table, "is somethin' I understand all too well."

Coccham begins to feel like home. He still is no good at fighting, but Finan works with him daily. He is given an axe, too, while he trains with the staff. "An axe requires little skill," Uhtred explains, not for the first time. "But the time you lose between one downswing and the next can be the death of you, so make sure you plan for that."

In Sihtric Osferth finds an unexpected friend. Like Osferth, Sihtric is a bastard, but Sihtric's father was a cruel man who had kept him as a slave until he had entered Uhtred's service. The Dane bore some of the marks of his abuse at the hands of his father, and Osferth is horrified to see a trend emerging among the men who are both fierce and honorable. They had all be treated cruelly and had suffered at the hands of men. Not for the first time, Osferth wonders if he can ever possibly truly belong among these men.

Sihtric is married to a former whore from Winchester named Ealswith. Osferth first cooks for Sihtric one cold winter's night as Ealswith lay screaming in the other room, delivering Sihtric's second child. The Dane was all nervous energy, so Osferth shoved a calming broth in his hands and asks him to tell him of the first time he met Ealswith.

"I am not sure your virginal ears are ready for that story, Baby Monk," Sihtric laughs, relaxing for the first time in hours. Sihtric talks to him until Hild comes, Sihtric's daughter in her arms. Sihtric beams at Osferth and slaps him on the back. "A daughter, Osferth!" He grins, and then goes to see to his family.

There is peace. Uhtred and Sihtric get to watch their children grow. Somewhere in Mercia, his sister has her child, Aelfwynn. Osferth learns to fight, and he reads books his father still sends. He is happier than he would have expected back when he was digging in a monestary garden.

Their peace ends the the following fall. Skade comes into their lives, and Lady Gisela dies. As the ride from Winchester, fugitives from his father, Osferth is certain nothing will ever be the same again

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hope you have enjoyed. This has been so darn fun to write. I think maybe 2 more chapters?
> 
> I am behind on responding to comments but I LOVE THEM ALL.


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